just a matter of time
by veronique2
Summary: Ennis is living at his married daughter Alma JR when he recevies a letter from Jack's mother.


hi! here is my first fanfiction about Brokeback  
mountains. I hope you will like it. I want to thank  
my beta rothalion, since i m french without her i'm  
nothing and nutmeggers for his brokeback mix. I  
wrote while i was listening to his/her mix and it  
inspired me.  
  
  
  
Title: Just a matter of time.1/1  
  
Pairing: Ennis/Jack  
Rating: PG  
Author's Notes:thank my beta rothalion, since i m  
french without her i'm nothing and nutmeggers for  
his brokeback mix.  
  
Summary: Ennis is living at his married daughter  
Alma JR when he recevies a letter from Jack's  
mother.  
  
DISCLAIMER: I do not claim to own these characters;  
they belong solely to Annie Proulx 's book and Ang  
Lee's movie.

Ennis lived at his daughter, Alma Jr.'s home waiting to find a new job. Alma Jr. and Curt were nice to him but he felt uncomfortable. It was not his place after all and he hoped to find a job the soon as possible. When he'd woke up that morning, he still had that familiar lingering, weird feeling he got when he dreamt about Jack. The dream had been different this time, not the usual Jack come to visit dream. In it, Jack had simply stood in front of a confused Ennis, with that familiar and loving crooked smile of his, and just told him "Do it" before disappearing. "Do it" Ennis remembered and wondered as he swallowed his straight black coffee, already gone cold.

Alma Jr. entered the kitchen and kissed her father tenderly on his stubble coarse cheek before handing him a letter. "You have mail today and a touch more gray." She brushed the cheek gently and held out the envelope. He took the letter and once he was alone in his little room, sat on the bed and opened the surprise parcel. It was from Jack's mother:

My husband died one week ago from an heart attack. I wish to meet you again, we need to talk about Jack and I'll give you his ashes to bring up to Brokeback Mountain as he always wanted. Please call me back to confirm your arrival.

Ennis arrived at Lightening Flat, three days later. Jack's mother hugged him tightly and it surprised the ageing cowboy that he was unsure of how to react to the woman's kind gesture. Confused, he didn't hug her back. The farm was in a worse shape than the last time he'd been out there. The time he'd first asked to take Jack back to Brokeback.

She offered a cup of tea, but he refused politely. Then, with great care, she put Jack's ashes on the old cherry dining table.

"He needs to return to where he belongs." She said with emotion thick in her voice.

Ennis looked at the silver urn feeling as though a knife had just been driven into his aching heart. "Thank you." He muttered, his voice hoarse with unspoken grief. He couldn't speak more than those two words. But those two words would begin to heal a wound that had been open for far too many long years. They thanked the kind woman for more far more than simply allowing Ennis to return Jack to Brokeback, but thanked her as well for the acceptance that she offered.

"I also have an offer for you. Now that my husband is dead," she began "I need someone to work the ranch. Oh, Ennis, I know it won't be easy. But it had always been Jack's dream to bring you here to rebuild the ranch together."

The offer surprised Ennis and the shock showed on his face. He sat stock still as she continued on. His shaking fingers tracing the engraving on the urn as he listened.

"You don't have to answer me right away." She assured him deftly reading Ennis' confusion in his sad eyes.

Ennis truly didn't know what to say, it was totally unexpected. First the letter, then the ashes and an offer to make a home for himself.

"I thought you'd liked to sleep in his room tonight." She said with a weak but caring smile.

Ennis nodded before finally finding his tongue. "I'll leave tomorrow for Brokeback Mountain, first light Ma'am. Trip'll gimme time to think it through."

"Good." She said patting his hand. "My husband ain't here anymore to say no." She sighed. "Jack and his father never really got on very well. He thought Jack wasn't his son, you know." 

Ennis listened to Jack's mother, talk. Uneasy as he was, he let her. Maybe she needed to he thought and besides he was eager to know more about Jack's past.

"He was dead wrong though. Jack was indeed his son…" she didn't explain much more about what he seemed a complicated situation between her and Jack's father.

For a long time she sat in front of Ennis and continued on a bit more seriously. "I knew about you and him." Hearing those simply words froze Ennis' heart. " Jack's told me, when he came back from Brokeback that first season. Jack and I always talked about everything. Everything." She repeated the word as if to insure that Ennis understood. "Besides, Jack wasn't never able to hide his feelings anyway." She smiled at the thought of her young and spontaneous son. "I ain't never seem him happier than when he talked about you, Ennis De Mar."

Ennis smiled at theses words. He wanted so badly to convey his feelings, to this kind woman. So many things about what Jack meant to him but Ennis lacked for words and instead he was just silent. Years of keeping their secret had sealed his lips on the matter of Jack and him. What he didn't realize, was that Jack's mother had understood all that Ennis couldn't say. Ennis' eyes told the two men's tale better than any words he could have mustered. She continued to tell her story as she took her tea.

"I wasn't that surprised to learn about it. When he was ten years old, he had his first crush for a neighbor boy. He had kissed the boy on the cheek. Disgusted, the boy called him a faggot and punched him. Jack came home crying. He asked me what faggot meant? He had no clue, the poor boy. I told him a boy can kiss a girl but not another boy and I remember to this day, how he frowned at me. Jack just liked that boy and didn't see why it was wrong to like him." 

Ennis smiled. "Typical Jack." He thought.

"He never had a girlfriend. My Jack would rather dream about rodeoin' and cowboyin'. I loved my son, Ennis, and accepted him the way he was. I made a bad choice when I was young. It was a choice made just because I was too afraid of consequences and… Well, I didn't try to change who he was. I always knew it wouldn't be easy for him, but life is never easy anyway. His father suspected it. Then became sure when he heard your name for the first time. Jack couldn't hide how he felt about you. His love for you sounded from every word he spoke about you. But as long as he knew Jack, one day or another, was coming from time to time to help him with the place and the promise that he'd take care of the ranch. He said nothing about it."

Ennis asked if he could smoke, she said it was fine.

"When he came back from Brokeback that summer, and finally told me what happened, for the first time I felt so happy for Jack and yet so scared for him too. He sounded like he'd truly found himself and yet at that the same time was even more confused than he had been before." She sighed and recalled the old dusty conversation.

"Will you see him again soon?" she'd asked while he was playing with the little wooden horse that Ennis had made and given him.

"I don't know, he seemed a might upset when he learned we had to go back." He said; touching his cheek, still sore from Ennis' punch. "But at the same time, when I asked if he he'd come back to work next summer, he sounded like it was definite, no. That he'll marry in December."

"Jack, you should try to calm down. Is it possible that this man..." Jack interrupted her knowing what she was trying to say and not really wanting to hear it.

"I'll wait to next summer, see if he is there Momma. He'll have had time enough to see that girl isn't for him. Time to see I miss him so much. That he misses me."

His mother sighed "Jack, don't expect too much, you always go along quicker than you should."

"The next summer, you weren't there, and Jack understood his dream about the two of you may have been just a dream. He also learned the harder truth after hearing his boss' warning that if he continued that way, he won't have anymore for him and neither would anyone else."

Ennis exhaled a lung full of cigarette smoke. The memory of their first summer ending with a punch still haunted him. 'Jack I'm so sorry.' He closed his eyes to quash his tears. Jack's mother's soft voice drew him back from the past.

"That's when, he decided to leave for Texas. To at least try and make good on one of his dreams. He believed it could be possible to do the circuit, become a famous bull rider and make a lot of money rodeoin' He also wanted to show his father that he was able to rodeo as good as he did."

The phone rang and interrupted Jack's mother. She let the ring play out until it stopped leaving the small neat kitchen in an awkward, still silence. Ennis could hear the old wooden birdhouse shaped clock, with a blue jay perched on top, tick- tocking in the backround.

"He came once a year to see us and help with the ranch. He told me it was hard to come across good friends down there and that rodeo work wasn't what he thought it would be either. He really felt bad. He had some lovers but he couldn't stop thinking' about you. He was hurtin' inside just knowin' that you probably forgot all about him. About Brokeback. That you were somewhere happily married." She sipped her tea and slipped inside herself lost in yet another memory.

"I met this girl Momma, Lurreen, she is nice! I like her. May be it's time for me to do the right thing for once. It's hard enough, I will never find another Ennis del Mar, and it just ain't worth the risks for some dude I don't give a shit about. Ennis got married, I can do the same. And Lurreen 's father is rich, I could have a good life and move on. Put ole Brokeback behind me."

"If you say so, son. If you're sure. You have my blessing." 

"I was surprised. Life sure had must a been hard on him, but my dreamy boy, who wanted the world and thought it was possible seemed to resign himself to the idea of livin' by it's selfish rules. I was sad, something in me knew Jack was takin' the easy path the wrong path, the same way I choose when I was younger. But the part of me who had been constantly afraid for my son, felt relief. In this false world he was building he would at least be safe. To marry and build a family was safe and I wanted him to be safe. Except, married life, wasn't for him. Things got worse. His father hated him, his father in law hated him, too. That year he came home a wreck of a man.

"What I have done? This is not my dream! Not my life! I thought it could be better, but I ain't never felt so dead inside, I'm miserable, Momma. I'm not even happy to have a new born child!" He was devastated. He was angry at himself for choosing the easy way and felt he paid the high price for it. He opened his drawer and took the two shirts from your summer at Brokeback Mountain and said :

"I need to know, what really happened there? If it was more for him or… I need to know 'cause I'm stuck at Brokeback and I can't do anything from there. I'm going to write him, tell him I'm coming, I'll know with his answer.."

Jack's mother took another cup of tea and asked again if Ennis wanted one, and this time he accepted.

"You answered 'you bet' he showed it to me. He was so excited, I thought he was going to burst from happiness. My son was back to the living and once he came back he never stopped hoping as the years passed " It's just a matter of time mom, Ennis is not happy there, I know he loves me, it's a matter of time and we we'll take care of the ranch together."

Ennis felt bad. His gut was twisted up like how it did when he rode away from Brokeback "I…" He started

"You don't have to explain yourself. Jack never wanted to give up but as more and more the time passed he knew he'd never bring you home. That's when he tried to move on again. This time not with a woman, but another man. This Ryan fellow. He'd had an affair with him I suppose. He told us that Ryan was ready to leave his wife behind to come but at the last minute when he was ready to leave Lurreen, he found himself unable to do it."

"Started this life with Ryan, mom, but I don't know anymore. We had a huge fight, Ennis and me. Before I asked Ryan. Told Ennis 'bout Mexico. He was furious Mom. Now here I go again 'bout to move on… but I can't. I'll tell Ryan I can't. I can't do that to him. He'll ruin his life for someone who desperately wants to be with someone else. And I can't leave Ennis behind. God I just can't quit him! I can't betray him that way. Mom, I'm still stuck at Brokeback Mountain, but now I know it's where I want to stay. I passed twenty years stuck there, trying to escape it and time and time again Ennis refused to share his life with me. But Momma, I'd rather have bits and pieces of Ennis and Brokeback than nothing' at all. With Ryan, it will be another lie, just like with Lureen. Can't lie no more mom. Just can't."

"Two months later, we learned his death." Tears rolled down on her wrinkled, parchment like cheeks. "I'm not blind. My son had been killed. Surely what happened with that Ryan caused his death…"

Ennis stood up and went to hold Mrs. Twist, sharing for the first time his pain about Jack's loss freely.

The next day he arrived at Brokeback Mountain alive with all the good memories of them being up there that summer twenty years before. As he threw the ashes away he remembered his dream the night before Jack's mother's letter came and what Jack had said in it. Ennis looked at the mountains and said out loud.

"I'll do it Jack. I'll do it. I'll come home." He stayed there a long time with the feeling that Jack was at his side. Then he stood up and was ready to go back to Lightening Flat and accept Jack's mother's offer about the ranch.

Jack had finally brought Ennis home. In Ennis' next dream Jack was there and said:

"I knew it was just a matter of time, Del Mar!"

"I wish you could be here with me, Jack." Said Ennis.

"I am." Jack reassured him, "but now I have to go back to the sheep." Jack finished disappearing with the clang of the old alarm clock that was set to awaken Ennis .

"See ya tonight, Jack." Promised Enni,s as he stood up from his bed.

END 


End file.
